Whitmarsh: “We’ve just got to keep progressing”

Martin Whitmarsh believes that McLaren can continue to make progress in its pursuit of Red Bull, but he doesn’t underestimate the task at hand.

McLaren has made a huge leap since winter testing, but Whitmarsh knows it won’t be easy to maintain the development momentum.

“I hope and believe we can keep it up!” said Whitmarsh in China. “We’ve just got to keep progressing. It’s always the way, Red Bull won’t stand still, we’ve got to improve at a faster rate than them. From very, very difficult circumstances a few weeks before the start of the season, we made some decisions which were quite bold to completely change our car.

“We shouldn’t underestimate Ferrari and Mercedes, I think they’re capable of responding. It’s early days yet, in truth today was such that you had to get the strategy right, otherwise you didn’t get the results. Today Mercedes were capable of winning, and so were Ferrari.”

Generously Whitmarsh said that he was happy to see RBR rival Mark Webber have a good race: “I’m really pleased for Mark, because let’s face it he’s had a pretty torrid weekend, and a difficult start to the year. That’s a solid result. I didn’t like the fact that he went past Jenson at the end, but he was on fresher rubber, and Jenson did an intelligent job.”